by Lee Sau Woon
Vanessa looked at the female forensics pathologist, whom, according to her, still had a crush on Martin. And it seemed that the attraction was not one-sided.
A four-word Chinese phrase came into her mind. Hong yan huo shui, which means trouble brought by a female. She shook her head to clear her obviously not professional thoughts.
> "Sorry to interrupt your little reunion," Jameson said. "Perhaps you'd like to > stay for the autopsy," he asked Martin.
> "Please do," Cassandra told him, "and perhaps afterwards, we could go out and > grab something to eat."
> Zenya shook her head warningly at Martin and formed a silent "Don't!".
> "If it's OK with you, Chief," Martin said to Jordan, ignoring Zenya.
> "Sure, why not," Jordan responded. Martin and Cassandra trotted off to the > examining room.
The rest of the group stayed back for some more discussion, with Vanessa and Jim deciding to go down to the train tunnel to take a look.
"Will there be anybody who is willing to lead the way?" Leo asked. "It would be embarassing if we spent one whole day inside just to realise that we managed to get lost."
Jameson thought for a while before he answered.
"I don't think so. This incident had scared quite a number of people. We even heard that some train operators refused to operate near the area. "
"Nobody willing to help?" Vanessa asked.
"I'm afraid not. One of the tunnel engineers is next door, helping out with the maps and like, but I don't think he will be willing."
Jameson was right. Despite persuasion, and abit of threat, the engineer was only willing to help out in directions giving, and that 'no way in hell' was he going to bring them down personally.
"You can have this map," he said, as he shoved them a map that was already badly scribbled with his illegible handwriting. "Don't say that I never help. I just don't want to die this young. And look out for the trains. I don't want you kids to dent the trains and scare the passengers."
Jim and Vanessa, disguisted, went back to the other room, where the rest of the people still are.
Jordan looked at the crumpled map in Jim's hands.
"I take it that he refused to go?"
"We'll managed without his help, Jordan." Vanessa told him. Jordan raised his eyebrows.
"Jerk," she mumbled under her breath.
The group then split up, with Jim and Vanessa taking a Taurus.
"No more Japanese cars," Jim said with huge relief as Vanessa started the engine.
"I never have problem with Japanese cars." she told him.
"Size, Agent Lee. Size does matter."
She laughed.
They went to the platform at DeKalb Avenue, and a flash of their badges led them through without any question asked. One of the personnel was kind enough to show them the door which led down to the tunnels, but there was all.
"God, don't they ever clean this place?" Vanessa commented when her torchlight illuminated cobwebs and dust all over the tunnels. She was glad that she wore a grey suit.
> It was comparatively difficult to find their way around the dark tunnels with > only two feeble flashlights and a crumpled map, but once they saw the 'Police > line - do not cross' tape, they knew they'd made it.
[snipped]
> They left the tunnels of the subway, heading back to the team's hotel. On the > way, they stopped at the FBI field office.
The two agents had just left the field office when Jim's handphone rang.
"Reaper," he answered. "Yes, we are out of there. I've found something, but I guess we would have to wait for the reports to come out before knowing what it is." A pause. "A experimented dog of some kind? Yes, we are going back to the hotel. I guess we can wait. See ya later."
"What's up?" Vanessa asked.
"Jordan wanted us to go back to the hotel immediately. He said that he met someone who mentioned something about experiments on dogs, which might help us in our investigations."
"Dogs?"
"I don't have the details. Jordan promised to tell us the moment we go back to the hotel. Zenya, Martin, and Leo are on their way back too."
"Martin must be mad to be interrupted from his little reunion." She mumbled to herself.
"What did you say?" Jim, who only heard her mumblings, asked.
"Nothing," she replied. "Let's go."